We had a good weekend. It wasn’t too crazy but we did enough to not be bored either. The big highlight of the weekend was the GRAND OPENING of the Lego store in Penn Square mall. They brought in a master builder to build a 8 foot tall R2D2 and invited people to come help build him. So of course we were alllll over that.

Friday when Neil got home we loaded up and went to the mall. In the center of the mall they had lots of tables with lego bricks and instructions to build a simple block of legos. So we built some blocks in different colors. You then hand them in for a voucher. They take the blocks and that is what they use to make the R2 out of. It was a pretty good system. The master builder and his assistant weren’t quite sure how to get it going, and were arguing a little – which was pretty cool too! LOL! They had somewhere between 1 and 2 feet of him build.

We then took the certificate back to the store and they gave each of the boys a award saying they helped to build it and were a master builder. We checked out the store AGAIN. They have a life size Indiana Jones in the store right now. The boys were very impressed.

Sunday we went back to see the finished product. They weren’t quite done. Aiden sat down at the ropes and talked to the master builder about legos while he built the top of R2. Aiden had a pretty good conversation going with him. He let Aiden, Alex and a few other kids come under the ropes a little and help him build the top of R2. They thought this was AWESOME. Aiden got the master builders autograph on a lego brick. It’s pretty cool. Chase rode the elevater up and down and watched the progress as we waited. He is very into elevators and escalators right now.

When they FINALLY completed the top it took 7 guys to coordinate themselves to lift the top of R2 on him and connect the lights. As they set the top down the counted down and at 0 yelled “may the force be with you” and streamers went everywhere in the air!! No one was expecting the streamers, its was fun!!

SOOOOO THAT WAS OUR WEEKEND. Sunday Neil, Aiden, and I are going to go back and help take R2 apart. Woohoo!! It took the people in Dallas 1.5 hours. We are trying to beat their time. The little boys will be camping with their GIGI & Papa.

Aiden turned 8 years old yesterday. I can hardly believe it. Sometimes it still feels weird to think that I am a mom of 3 kids… let alone the mom of an 8 year old. CRAZY!!!

As far as 8 year olds go, I think Aiden is the best. I am very proud of him. He’s a great kid. He’s very kind and empathetic, very very smart, a GREAT big brother and is just all around a cool kiddo. I am very very happy to be his mom. He makes it very easy.

So to celebrate his birthday he had a sleepover with 7 of his friends last Friday. It was madness. He wanted  a Star Wars Clone Wars party. I made the cake of course, and made Xwing hotdog things for dinner. Then they played lots of games and did the cake. Later they played video games, watched the clone wars movie, and snacked on cholate covered pretzel rods made to look like light sabers, yoda soda with light up straws, candy and popcorn. They were up really really late and had a great time sleeping over and hanging out.

Saturday we went to lunch as a family at Mimi’s and celebrated with all the Grandparents and Great Grandparents. Monday was his actual birthday, we didn’t do much since we’d already celebrated so much.

So Aiden is officially 8, going on 9!!! Once I get a photo program to shrink photos I will add them to the blog, until then check out my facebook page.

We took the boys to the eye doctor this morning. Aiden is the only one who has been before. We took them all to a new place called Latimer Vision. It’s just south of 240 on Penn. They advertise vision therapy and working with people who have autism and adhd, and mostly with kids. I was sold. Neil took off to go with us and it was the smoothest appointment we have had either ever or in a very very long time. They had 2 different doctors seeing the boys and they all did FABULOUS. Aiden’s eyes are a little better, which is good. Chase’s eyes are working together and doing well. He has a teeny bit of farsightedness but nothing too bad so we decided to leave him alone and see if he doesn’t outgrow it in a year. Alex on the other hand….

Alex’s eye are healthy but not working together. His left eye is not working well at all. He is at risk for losing his vision. Basically the vision or disc is skewed and is so off that his body isn’t using the left eye. Eventually without glasses and or possibly therapy or medical help his brain would eventually see his eye as non-functional and it would stop working. Thankfully we caught it early and the doctor feels like he has a good shot at his eye being helped with glasses alone. He said to come back in a few months for another checkup and that its important he wear his glasses all the time to fix the problem or help it not get worse. He made it sound like in a few years he would have been in big trouble with it. I felt bad I only really took him in because Aiden is due, and Chase’s doctor wanted his eyes checked because of his stimming. I figured we were checking the other two we’d break Alex in and get him checked. I figured of all of the boys he probably didn’t need anything.  Apparently I was wrong. Oh and he said that his left eye not working well could also be attributing to his clumsiness.

So our little Alex went with me and his brothers to eyemasters and picked out some new glasses. Here’s a picture. Isn’t he cute? We did consider getting him a monocale as he only needed a script in the one eye. We figured he could really rock a monacle but he picked these out and well they are cute!!

It feels like we have been busy lately but I can’t pinpoint what we have been busy doing…  Hmmm weird.

Graysen was with us for a full week last week. She was in a super sweet, super cute mood all week. She seemed to really miss the boys, and they definitely missed her. We had a fun week. Wednesday we went to the spraygrounds with the Gunkel’s and the Mile’s. The boys had fun, and Graysen had a blast. She is FEARLESS when it comes to the water. The boys had fun running after her and playing with their friends. The weather put a damper on our fun. A storm started building and there was lots of thunder. Chase ran over to me and says “MOM MOM WE GOTTA GO!!! A TOMATO IS COMING!!!” He meant tornado, but mixed the words up. Cracked me up.

Saturday we went to the zoo. We got out there early because it’s been soooo hot lately. We played on the playground and then rode the tram around the zoo. The boys thought that was awesome. Alex thought the person giving the tour was talking to him. He would comment on something and she would answer him back. It kind of tripped him out. It was funny to see his reaction to it. The giraffes were RIGHT NEXT TO the fence. It was pretty cool. We learned that the Okapi eat 40+ POUNDS of leaves a day… THATS ALOT OF LEAVES!!!! I don’t even know what 40 POUNDS would even look like. We walked through aquaticus. Chase LOVED the sea lions, Alex liked the fish and the shark jaws. Aiden had alot of fun with everything. He loves elephants but they are gone right now, so his favorite is gone, the other stuff is still cool though.

Other than that, nothing major has been going on. We are just trying to stay cool. I have a summer cold. Alex and Chase got a stomach bug this weekend, and were vomitting and having GI issues. They seem to be better today. YAY!!! Aiden’s birthday is coming up. He will be 8 years old!! 8!! I can’t believe it!! He is having a sleepover and it excited about it. We are getting all geared up for that!! So really that’s an update in a nutshell…

We got a new grill.

Our old grill was hard to operate and apparently Neil never turned the propane off between uses. Well we got a new grill and he didn’t turn it off either (just got out of the habit)…. The grill has a side burner with lid. Our son Chase was in the backyard last night. We had people over and a TON of children running back and forth. Chase was in the backyard and runs into the house shrieking. He has a freakishly high pain tolerance so this is a BIG DEAL. His face was covered in what appeared to be blackish brownish sand. It looked like he dunked his face in water then face planted into a pile of sand. I thought maybe he had it in his eyes. I grabbed him and put him in our tub and was using the sprayer to rinse his face, he was flipping out I could hardly keep hold of him, was basically in the tub with him restraining and spraying. He smelled HORRIBLE. I was trying to figure out why the sand was so black and smelled so bad but more focused on getting it off him.

Neil enters. When I crossed him in the living room with Chase in tow and he cought a whiff of him he knew something happened in the yard. He went to investigate to make sure no other kids were out there. Found the grill burner on and realized he’d set a flash fire. He disconnected it and ran back to me.

So I am in the shower drowning us both trying to get the “sand” out when Neil comes in and tells me that it wasn’t sand that Chase had “cought himself on fire” I FREAKED OUT!!!! It started making sense, the smell, his eyelids being rimmed in sand, his eyebrows, his hair, his nose and mouth had the highest concentrations of the sand. IT WASN’T SAND IT WAS SINGED HAIR/ASH. I was worried about his eyes, his skin looked fine. I called 911 who wanted to send a abulance. I finally got a clear head and hung up with them and called our friend who is an EMT. He assured me we had a close call but that he was fine and just burned all the hair on his face off. FABULOUS!!!!

Chase is calmed down and fine. He looks much more well groomed. I still feel like vomitting. Even more so after Neil took me outside and showed me what happened. He turned the gas on then ignited and it shot a huge flame out of the hole and then extinguished.

IT COULD HAVE BEEN SOOOOOO MUCH WORSE. PRAISE JESUS IT WASN’T. Neil will never forget again I am sure. In fact the propane is now disconnected and in a different location from the grill. You can just never be too safe.

Last week was a crazy whirlwind of a week. It was fun but very very busy. I did not have Graysen so it was just my boys and me. It was nice to just have them and not worry about naptimes too much, etc… We did miss Graysen too. Her Mommy had fun with her, and got some great time with her. So it’s all good.

So Monday Dan and Mindy came and got Aiden and Chase. They took them camping at Arcadia. Alex and I went to lunch, the lego store, shopping, toys r us etc… When Neil got home we went hung out, and then went to dinner at Ted’s *YUM!!* and did some more shopping. Neil needed new work clothes. We ended up at Gordmans and found him an awesome deal on pants!!! We also found they were running awesome deals on the boys clothing. We stocked them up new shirts for school. We got Neil 3 pairs of pants, 1 polo shirt, and 16 shirts for the boys. So 20 items. The total put the items as an average of $4 per item. It was a great deal.

Sooo Tuesday, Alex and I went grocery shopping and then picked the other boys up. We stopped and got them all school shoes, and then I took Aiden later in the evening back to Gordman’s and got him some shirts/pants/shorts. I have learned to let him pick them out now. Less of a struggle later.  Anyway the boys are all set for school in the clothes department, and all for GREAT prices. I am thrilled.

Don’t remember what all happened Wednesday and Thursday. More errands and just hanging out for the most part I think. Aiden had baseball practice on Thursday and is doing very well.

Neil had Friday off. The boys love him having extra time off.  It’s good to have a 3 day weekend. Anyway we got lots done this week and had alot of fun, so it was a great week!! I would post more but they boys are at each others throats again so I better go mediate before someone gets hurt. Welcome back to reality Amy….